You've successfully set up your online gift basket business and you're enjoying increasing sales. And then, one day, you get a huge order and are immensely pleased. The credit card transaction goes through and a few days later and after your hard work at getting together the twenty gift baskets and shipping them to the required destination, you discover that the bank refuses to credit the amount to you.

When you set up your gift basket business, you are, of course, faced with numerous questions, doubts, and options. One of them, and an important one at that, is whether to accept credit cards.

Whether you have your business in a retail outlet or online or a combination of both, credit cards are the norm these days. Of course, there are still some customers who prefer to pay using cash or debit but most people have a credit card and use one these days.

You've got a fantastic web site set up for your gift basket business. But, you get no traffic hits. That's a problem, but it won't be for long if you follow these steps:

Give your site visual appeal
This does not mean jazzing it up with flashy animations or complex images. Beware of those--in fact, they will make your web pages take longer to load, and chase your potential customers away.

Customers are the lifeline of any business. Letting your customers know that they are important and that their concerns and fears are your own can make you their trusted confidante. How better to bond with others than by being a confidante?

Listen well
Try to pay attention to what your customer is telling you without being distracted. If there is something that urgently needs your attention, asking your customer to excuse you will do wonders and make them know that you value their time.

Customer service is of utmost importance from Day One. You can have the best gift baskets and the best services. You might get hard-to-find items of the best quality but if poor customer service is what tags along, customers will not stay your customers for long.

Great customer service is all about getting customers to shop at your store again.

What's in a name? A whole lot, these days... A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. But how a business is named does to a very large extent influence the success or failure of the whole venture. And, the same applies to a gift basket business.

The business name you choose must be indicative of what your business is about. Try to adopt a business name that is fairly short--so it's easy to remember.